Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure generally relates to interactive voice response systems, and more specifically, to systems and methods for integrating multiple user devices with an interactive voice response system.
Related Art
As a way of reducing costs, many entities incorporate interactive voice response (IVR) systems to direct and guide telephone call traffic to aid a caller to proper personnel or recording of an IVR menu. The caller may be attempting to reach customer support, talk to a person in a particular department, find a tutorial and/or the like. However, IVR systems can be frustrating for the caller in many cases. Callers may have to speak or push number keys on their phone to navigate through a long menu tree. In some cases, callers may drill down an incorrect path of a menu tree and have to start over from the beginning to reach their intended destination. In some cases, callers will attempt to skip the IVR system to go straight to an operator, which defeats the purpose of the IVR system. Furthermore, current IVR systems are poor at handling groups of callers calling for the same issue. For example, many callers may call about a service outage and clog up the IVR system with this single issue. With past IVR systems, an operator would have to deal with each caller individually one by one. This is because IVR systems tend to be an inflexible and unable to efficiently address dynamic problems and situations.
Additionally, past IVR systems are unable to take advantage of new technologies that have developed. For example, the IVR system was originally developed for client telephones communicating over PSTN or cellular networks and has not been changed to function cooperatively with smartphones beyond voice communications. There a plethora of higher functioning user devices that have become ubiquitous and could be advantageously integrated with an IVR system to give a better user experience, especially now that unified communications are possible using IP based communications. It would be beneficial if devices such as the smart TV, smart phones, tablet computers, and the like could be integrated with IVR calls to provide a better experience to a caller.
Thus, a more flexible IVR system which detects and integrates multiple user devices would be desirable.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, wherein showings therein are for purposes of illustrating embodiments of the present disclosure and not for purposes of limiting the same.